Phoenix Rising
by millsenberry
Summary: "Associated with the sun, a phoenix obtains new life by arising from the ashes of death." A Mass Effect 3 Epilogue. Featuring loads of Shenko, a baby & beer (because there's no such thing as too much Shenko, babies & beer.)
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: As much as I wish I'd thought up these awesome cocktail names by myself, credit goes to _SaveGame _for coming up with the recipes. They were so spot-on some of them were even included in the _Citadel _DLC!  
If you haven't actually tried _Full Biotic Kick_** **yet- what are you waiting for? Kaidan in a glass. Mmm, yes.**

* * *

Shepard surveyed the small table next to her deck chair with wide, excited eyes. An assortment of cocktails adorned the little reed-woven table, glasses frosty, umbrellas bopping slightly amongst the liquor and ice in the salt-water breeze. Speckles of sand clung to the moisture sweating off the glasses. A six pack of beer sat invitingly on a mound of sad beneath the table, ice cold beneath her toes when she nudged it.

This was Aurora Shepard _heaven_.

The Commander leaned forward to inspect the post-it labels secured under each drink, lifting up her sunglasses to settle on her jet-black fringe and squinting against the strong beach sun. _Full Biotic Kick._ Oh. Hell. Yes. She was defiantly drinking that one first. _The Shadowbrokertini. _The blueberries bopping in the bottom on the flute reminded her exactly of her favourite Asari bouncing in excitement at her terminal. _The Heat Sink_. Spirits, indeed. She was definitely popping that shot. _The Tasty Tankbred_. Shepard poked at the contents of the tumbler with a straw. A mix of chocolate sauce, crushed cookies and sprinkles floated at the top of the cocktail on a bed of milky foam. Eh he he. She made a mental note to save that drink for dessert.

Shepard sighed happily, peeling the damp label from the _Full Biotic Kick _and settling back into her deck chair, sliding her sunglasses back into place and closing her vivid green eyes. She balanced the drink on the smooth, taunt expanse of her belly and basked in the warmth of the sun. She couldn't remember the last time she had been to a beach, or had a proper shore leave. Getting drunk on a beach amongst crabs and seaweed had never been high on her list of things to do, as her pale spacer skin was apt to burn when exposed to sunlight for short periods of time. She had opted to spend her last proper furlough with Kaidan in Alaska to see the famous Aurora Borealis lights she had been named after.

Shepard mentally kicked herself for not deciding to spend the second half of their precious shore leave naked and romping in the sand dunes with Kaidan on a beach instead.

Yes, this was heaven. A smorgasbord of alcohol, damaging sun rays and stinky beach air. The Commander was so tired. She had completed the mission she was born to do. She was not going to move from this chair, or this beach. She was going to lay here and drink herself stupid on cocktails and beer. She _deserved_ this, to get drunk and burn her freckled skin to a shade akin to that of cooked lobster.

The whiskey-brown colour of the liquor she held in her hand reminded her exactly of her favourite biotic's soulful brown eyes. Making a mental note to save some beers for Kaidan (_Who am I kidding_, she snorted to herself, _he'll be lucky if I save him one_), she raised the drink to the sun, toasting with no one in particular, and held the glass to her lips.

"SKIPPER!"

A sharp voice barking in Shepard's left ear startled her, causing her to accidently spill the contents of the _Full Biotic Kick _over her chest and lap. Noting wryly to herself how ironic it was that the cocktail dedicated to her lover had now found itself in all of said lover's favourite places, Shepard grabbed for the towel hanging off the head of her deck chair and sat up, dabbing at the spillage of bourbon and spiced rum staining her one-piece swimsuit. Scowling slightly and hoping that another glass of the cocktail would miraculously reappear on the smorgasbord beside her, she turned to see Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams stretched out on a deck chair beside her.

"Ashley?" Shepard asked, incredulous. Dropping the towel, the Commander gaped at the soldier she thought she had lost on Virmire. "What- what are you doing here?"

Ashley stretched out as lazily across the woven deck chair as one can do whilst wearing Heavy Phoenix armor, resting her armor-clad arms behind her head and craning her neck to look at Shepard. "What am _I _doing here? I should ask you the same question," the Chief replied, smirking slightly at the dumbstruck expression on her Commander's face. "Didn't I tell you last time not to come back until you'd saved the galaxy from the Reapers? Were old and grey? Married the LT? And drinking alcohol in your condition, no less! Skipper, you should know better than that."

Shepard sheepishly held a hand to her toned, flat stomach, feeling like a child caught sneaking cookies from the cookie jar as a wave of guilt washed over her.

"How do you-?"

The Chief's smirk grew wider. "Let's just say scuttlebut is present everywhere, even in the afterlife."

Ashley surveyed the selection of cocktails on the table beside the deck chairs before reaching for the untouched six-pack of beer. Uncapping the bottle expertly with a twist of her hand, she settled herself back on her deck chair and took a long swig of the beverage, regarding her Commanding Officer with a knowing gaze."This is quite the setup you've got going here, Skipper. Surprised you haven't got visions of the LT prancing around in Speedos."

The Gunnery Chief grinned widely and nudged the Commander with her boot as Shepard blinked at her confusedly. "I'm joking, of course."

"I'm sorry, I'm not following," Shepard admitted, watching Ashley's pink and white armored foot poke her knee.

"Oh Skipper, you're not meant to be here. We've spoken about this already. You aren't ready, same as last time. I don't know why you keep ending up here."

The Chief moved to the side as Shepard flopped back down on her deck chair beside her, her green eyes unfocused as she stared out towards the vast expanse of ocean. "Maybe it's time now," she shrugged. "I'm tired, Ash. So tired."

"Tired, shmired, Skipper," Ashley snorted. "What is wrong with you? You've finally rid the galaxy of the Reapers! You're free to live your life now." Ashley regarded the Commander with a steely gaze. "Don't give up just yet, Shepard. I don't care if you think you're tired. Think of the LT. It will break him if he loses you again. You've never been selfish in your life. No reason to start now."

Shepard snorted at the Gunnery Chief's words. "You think I'm being selfish because I'm tired and want to rest? Haven't I done enough for this galaxy? I just want a _rest_."

"Hey hey now, none of that," Ashley nudged Shepard with her elbow. "You're Commander Shepard. You don't know the meaning of the word "rest". You need to go back and live the life that you deserve. Don't stick around in this shithole. No offence," she quickly added to no one in particular as a rumble of loud thunder sounded in the distance. "It's alright for me. It was my time. There is some pretty great man candy around, and up here, it doesn't matter to anyone that I'm a Williams." The Chief surveyed the surrounding landscape, twitching her nose at the smell of the tangy ocean air. "I fulfilled my life's purpose. Helping you to stop Saren."

Ashley lent forward, resting a hand atop of Shepard's stomach. "You have so much more to live for, Skipper. Saving the galaxy from the Reapers isn't your only purpose in life, you know."

Shepard sighed and placed her own hands on top of Ashley's, knowing that the Gunnery Chief was the modern day Confucius. "Alright, alright. I'll go. But just one drink first?"

"No."

"Hey, I'm still your Commanding Officer. I get to dictate whether I'm allowed one drink or not."

"Up here, I'm the one who's dead, so I outrank you, Skipper. Heaven's overflowing thanks to this war. Get out of here, both of you. That's an order."

It hit the Alliance Commander in an instant. That ever familiar feeling of pain- overwhelming, searing pain. Shepard gasped as her knees buckled from under her, causing her to fall heavily onto the sand. She struggled to inhale, feeling as though her lungs were constricting within her chest, the swimsuit gone as her diaphragm struggling to expand amongst the melted armor seared to her bloodied and burnt skin. Blood pooled from her right leg as sharp tendrils of pain shot up her thigh and into her lower back. Her face burned and throbbed, her eyesight grew hazy. Shepard felt something- no, _someone_- poke from the insides of her lower abdomen. She clasped her belly with her burnt hands as she felt a heavy weight roll painfully from within her, as if nudging her to get up and move.

"Get out of here, Skipper," Ashley winked, settling back onto her deck chair as she watched Shepard struggle to hold herself up on all fours in the sand before her. She popped open another beer. "And make sure you remember me when you're naming that bun in the oven."


	2. Chapter 2

Shepard liked to think she had a good ear for music. An attribute she was sure the entire _Normandy_ crew could attest to, given the Commander's tendency to share her great taste with the crew when morale was low. Twenty-first century tunes were always a hit with her. None of this Hanar-squelching, Volus-deep breathing modern techno babble blasted at people from any and every direction in clubs and restaurants these days.

The capacity that sentient beings had for making rhythms and beats out of the strangest items had once fascinated her. Spoons, for example. Shepard herself had be known to tap her cutlery on her tray when she thought herself to be alone in the Mess. It was a nice way to wind down after a mission that did not go entirely to plan, picturing the slimy mounds that passed for meatballs to be the creepy cybernetic eyes of the Illusive Man.

The creaking, rumbling and screeching of twisted metal, enough to make any sane person grit her teeth and set the hairs on her arms on edge, did _not _fascinate her, however.

And yet, like the squelching and deep breathing that persisted in assaulting the eardrums anywhere that a number of people happened to be congregating at any one time, the screeching and banging of metal and god knows what else was persisting in making sure she couldn't relax enough to drift back off. Very annoying.

Shepard stirred as a particularly loud bang of cascading metal crashed in the distance, shaking her out of her pain-induced stupor. Immediately her senses were assaulted with fire- a blazing fire, not licking but positively engulfing every conceivable part of her body. She felt she had fallen into a vat of melted steel, wielding her ceramic Rosenkov armor to her flesh like a second skin. Her pulse thudded heavily in her ears and she struggled to open her eyes, covered in caked blood and crustier than Varren schnitzel.

She groaned loudly, clenching her eyelids back shut against the onslaught.

The smell of death and burnt flesh wafted into Shepard's singed nostrils, causing her to wheeze and cough uncontrollably, her chest protesting painfully at the effort. Her eyes flew open againt amongst the crusted caked blood, causing her to blink furiously as her tear ducts flooded in protest to the foreign bodies aggravating the delicate whites of her eyes. She made to sit up and gasped as the full extent of her injuries completely overwhelmed her senses, the blazing fire that engulfed her body turning into a raging inferno.

Shepard fell back heavily onto the broken slab of concrete she had landed on in the blast she had caused firing upon the Crucible, moans of pain tearing uncontrollably from her mouth as she took a moment to assess her situation. _I'm alive_, she thought to herself in surprise. _Holy hell. I feel like death, but I'm alive. _

A tendril of thought threatened to probe at her relief of being alive, but she immediately banished it to the back of her mind. _We're alive_, she told herself fiercely. _We're both alive._

It didn't take a genius to know that it would not be for much longer if she didn't whip herself into gear, however. The Commander bit her lip as she tried to raise her left arm, tasting the tang of dried blood and smoke in the thick atmosphere around her. By some miracle, her omni-tool lit to life, blinding her with its bright orange glow in her resting place among the slabs of metal and concrete. Ignoring the sight of the most inner layers of her dermis saying hello to the thick and heavy air, she moved her stiff fingers of her right hand to the omni-tool's holo console, typing as fast as the melted ceramic on her fingers would let her.

A cry escaped her lips as sharp pains stabbed the upper left quadrant of her abdomen, no doubt in protest to the gaping wound she had sustained in the run to the Beam. Shepard gritted her teeth and blinked furiously as she continued to squint at the searing light of her omni-tool, doing her best to ignore the assault on her senses as she struggled to complete the vital task she knew she had to do to get herself out of this potential grave.

_ Take a deep breath, soldier. Remember your training. Isolate and block off the pain. It can be controlled if you just put your mind to ignoring it. You're going to get out of here. You are both going to get out of here. Back to Kaidan. You just need to hang on._

The omni-tool finally began to ping, signaling the activation of a distress call Alliance leaders had programmed into their tools. It was twenty-first century tune relief to her ears. The Commander groaned in satisfaction, relinquishing the muscles in her left arm to fall back down to her side as fatigue and pain overwhelmed her. She had done all she could.

Shepard clasped her burnt and blooded hands across her lower belly, mumbled something incoherent in the thick atmosphere of the Crucible, and closed her eyes.


	3. Chapter 3

In another place and another lifetime, Doctor Chloe Michel might once have enjoyed being personally escorted to a trauma scene with an armed guard of Citadel Security officers armed to the teeth with guns. She was quite partial to a man with a gun; the whole "protector of the damsel in distress" dream was something she enjoyed fantasizing at night. Particularly alien men with a gun.

The squad, consisting of Commander Bailey, four other human soldiers and a Drell, were surrounded by an eerie blue glow of the Drell's extended biotic barriers cloaking the group. The officers were hustling the doctor as fast as their weary legs could carry them to the nearest C-Sec sky car lot, intent on their mission.

As she struggled to keep pace with the commander in charge of Citadel Security operations in the Human Embassy, Michel thanked her lucky stars that she agreed to conduct health assessments on human C-Sec officers, and had been present in an office full of armed saviors trained in the wonder of explosive weaponry when the Reapers tore through the relay into the Serpent Nebula to occupy the Citadel. The large glass windows of the Human Embassy's sickbay, once boasting a spectacular view of the Presidium and its surrounding buildings, had also boasted the doctor a disturbing view of Reaper troops storming the boulevards of the Presidium. Huerta Memorial Hospital was also clearly in view from her station. She had clenched her eyes shut in disbelief and held back tears as she watched people flung through the glass windows of the hospital into the depths of the water below, the splatter of red and blue blood alike clearly visible on the broken glass from her position over a kilometer away. Screaming, wailing and the sound of firing weapons echoed across the Presidium Lake as the carnage and harvest begun. The Reapers had finally come to the Citadel.

The doctor, who had crouched fetus-style for what had seemed like days in the safe room of the offices amongst other civilians fortunate enough to be at the Human Embassy at the time of the take-over, could not believe her eyes when Commander Bailey had unlocked the safe room and flung open the doors, trying to remain calm but barely containing his relief when he announced that Reaper forces across the station had mysteriously stopped their attack and ceased to function. He had woven his way towards the doctor amongst the massive exodus of civilians out of the safe room, intent on pulling her aside.

No one had explained to her yet why she was being escorted with armed C-Sec officers, resuscitation and trauma equipment retrieved from who knows where in tow. She could only assume that she was being taken to attend to the Citadel Councilors. Who else was important enough to warrant a rescue as soon as the Reapers had miraculously been defeated, when there were so many injured and dying in the wards and passageways of the station?

The squad passed a bloodied and wailing Asari, cradling her obviously dead Turian lover in her arms, his talons severed and pooling blood at her feet, the smell of burnt flesh thick and heavy in the air. She averted the Asari's distraught eyes, knowing there was nothing she could do for them at the moment. The backside of Commander Armando-Owen Bailey was looking pretty good in comparison to the sickening remains of the Reaper's harvest right now.

Michel shook her head and hitched her resuscitation pack more securely on her shoulders, focusing on the task ahead and trying to ignore the further carnage littering the passageways of the Citadel, bodies of citizens and Reapers alike. Beside her, a hovering trolley filled to the brim with everything she would need in an emergent trauma situation glided beside her, nicking the heels of Bailey, much to his annoyance.

"Who is it exactly we are going to rescue, Commander Bailey?" she huffed in her thick French accent as they reached the C-Sec sky car lot, a shuttle already puttering as it waited for its passengers. Bailey's fingers flew over his omni-tool as the shuttle's doors opened, muttering orders to his men as the Drell practically hoisted the doctor into the shuttle and secured her safely into a seat beside the doorway leading to the cockpit.

"Worked out that we're going to rescue somebody, have you?" Bailey turned towards the doctor, fatigue laced throughout his deep voice.

"It doesn't take a genius to work it out, Commander Bailey," Michel replied. "I assume it is someone considered incredibly important, given that we are ignoring the needs of other injured and dying citizens of the station?"

As the other members of the squad latched themselves securely to the ceiling rails, Bailey regarded the doctor with his steely blue eyes. Doctor Michel dipped her head towards him, motioning him to answer her question.

"What I'm about to tell you is technically classified under Alliance channels, Doctor Michel," Bailey continued. "The identity of the person we are going to rescue must be kept secret for her safety."

The occupants of the shuttle jostled as the vehicle took to the air. Michel nodded, signally him to go on.

"You've probably realized by now that somehow, the Reapers have been defeated," Bailey continued. Behind him, one of the heavily armed officers sniffed loudly, his head hung low as in prayer. "The Alliance has been working in secret alongside with the Citadel Council to build a secret weapon that was designed to destroy the Reapers. Commander Shepard was put in charge of uniting the galaxy to build a fleet capable of laying a surprise siege to the Reapers while the weapon was put in place. I don't have to tell you that the Reapers taking over the station significantly disrupted those plans. Such a load of BS."

Bailey brought up his fatigue-clad forearm as his omni-tool flickered to life, tapping at the holo console and projecting what appeared to be a map with a flashing pinpoint into the atmosphere of the shuttle before them. "All Alliance admirals, officials and commanding officers have encrypted distress beacons programmed into their tools. Not long after Reapers across the station were beginning to pick off like flies, this distress signal was picked up in our Human Embassy office. It's coming from the highest point of the Citadel Tower, somewhere that we never even knew existed. It's never been accessed since the Citadel has been occupied. Standing orders state that launching a rescue is of up most priority, even amongst all of the crap going about on the station right now."

Michel nodded her acknowledgement that she understood. Bailey took a deep breath and turned to watch towards the cockpit, watching the buildings atop of smoking and destroyed Citadel arms pass as the shuttle slowly made its way to the apex of the Citadel Tower. As the shuttle's inertial dampers compensated for the outside turbulence and the squad held tightly to the railings in an effort to keep steady, Michel's eye was caught by a bright green sticker that appeared to be stuck on the wall atop of a life support vent.

_Politicians are the weeds of the galaxy_. Michel raised her eyebrows.

"Who does the distress signal belong to?" Michel asked.

"Sir, if you have a moment?" the pilot of the shuttle called from the cockpit. Bailey grasped the railings attached to the ceiling tightly and made his way to the pilot. She could barely make out the discussion between the two officers, trying to avoid the gaze of the Drell as he watched her with black, soulful eyes.

The doctor avoided his gaze in discomfort.

A loud verse of cursing emanated from the cockpit in the deep voice of the C-Sec Commander. "Brace yourself, men," Bailey ordered, swinging back into the seating area of the shuttle. "We have to clear a path in the debris to get to our target with the shuttle's weapons. Might be a bit of a bumpier ride from here."

Michel turned a shade as green as Bailey's bumper sticker.

* * *

The doctor had never worn a breathing mask before. She had never needed to in her career as a medical officer, only having worked in well-ventilated clinics supported by life support systems. It seemed to mess with her sense of spatial awareness, having the apparatus strapped to her face. She realized that she had been ordered to wear it by Bailey due to the poorly oxygenated environment they were slowly making their way through to get to the target, but given she was huffing and puffing like she had climbed Mount Everest back on Earth, she felt she could probably have fared better without it.

It had not taken long to find their target once the C-Sec shuttle had landed amongst the debris of shattered concrete and twisted metal, remnants of the Crucible's explosion and the shuttle's merciless weaponry. The C-Sec officer had hustled the group as fast as their legs could carry them across what could only have been compared to no man's land. Bailey barked at his men as the distress signal tracker emanating from his omni-tool indicated that the source was beneath an ominous pile of rubble to the left of their direction, the squad kicking into a uniformed gear as they took position to carefully remove the debris burying their target.

A shocked squeak escaped Doctor Michel as a mangled and bloodied body slowly came into view, Bailey's men working faster as their efforts yielded them closer towards their goal of retrieving the target. Michel had never seen another being in such a state. The target, obviously a woman, was covered in third degree burns, the remains of her ceramic armor seared to what remained of her skin. A solider, obviously. Her platinum Alliance dog tags remained unmarked resting atop of the charred and melted remains of her armor's breastplate, the designation of N7 red clearly visible. Michel's eyes quickly scanned the woman as the rest of her body was slowly freed by Bailey's men, the C-Sec Commander's bellowing in her ear drowned out by the pulsating in her eardrums as her adrenaline kicked in.

At the moment, the platinum tags adorning her neck would be the only way of recognizing the woman. Her hair was singed to her scalp, what remained of her face swollen and bruised. Her right leg was mangled beneath a particularly large chunk of concrete that was unrelenting to the squad's attempts to remove off her limb, the woman lying in a dried pool of her own blood. Doctor Michel offered up a quick prayer and knelt beside the woman, instructing Bailey's men to bring her equipment beside her.

_Assess the patient's airway._

Michel pried open the woman's swollen mouth, yelling at the Drell to angle his omni-tool light so that she could peer into the soldier's mouth. She was breathing, but barely. The back of her throat was caked with soot, her airways swollen, blooding pooling within her mouth. Michel suctioned out the blood as best as she could and fumbled through her pack for an artificial airway, ripping through the sterile plastic while instructing the Drell to tilt the soldier's neck back so that she could angle the L-shaped tubing into her mouth. She gritted her teeth as the swollen airway of the soldier made it difficult, praying that the soldier would remain unconscious as she forced the tubing into the soldier's trachea.

After connecting the artificial airway to the portable oxygen pump attached to the hovering resuscitation trolley beside her, the doctor activated her omni-tool and scanned the soldier's body, assessing her lung sounds and heart rhythm. Breath sounds were absent from her left chest, indicative of a collapsed lung. Not a good sign. She fumbled amongst her supplies for a long syringe designed specifically for releasing the tension created by a pneumothorax, plunging it between the woman's fourth and fifth intercostal spaces amid the melted armor. A hiss projected from the attachment site of the needle, indicating the re-inflation of the soldier's left lung. She nodded to herself as she saw the immediate improvement in the soldier's breathing.

_Check for a pulse and circulation._

The woman's heartbeat was present but slow and thready, her circulation to her extremities clearly compromised. Michel hastily prepped a makeshift sterile field amongst the remains of the explosion to gain access to the woman's circulation, attaching a bag of intravenous fluids to the cannula she had expertly inserted into the delicate vein beneath the soldier's burnt flesh.

_Damage control._

Michel's heart felt like lead in her chest as she assessed the state of the soldier's left leg. She doubted that with supplies stretched as thin as they were thanks to the war and the environment the woman had laid in for the past forty-eight hours, it was highly unlikely that the leg could be saved. Assuming the soldier's other life-threatening injuries didn't kill her first. Her hands fumbled as she sorted through her supplies intently searching for anything she could use to pack the soldier's gaping abdominal wound. An assortment of supplies spilled around her from her pack as she knelt beside the dying soldier, hastily trying to get her bearings and source the sterile supplies she needed amongst the mess.

When Michel was satisfied she had done all she could to stabilize the solider for transport, the doctor retrieved a neck brace from her resuscitation trolley and, motioning the Bailey and his guards to help stabilize the woman, instructed everyone to carefully roll her onto her side, the glow of the Drell's biotics helping to keep the soldier's spine straight as she secured the neck of the woman to prevent causing any further spinal damage.

Despite the swift movement of the squad sliding the woman delicately onto the awaiting stretcher, the soldier's eyes flew open, a sickening gurgle emanating from her bloodied and bruised mouth as she struggled against the artificial airway that had been forced into her swollen trachea. The restraints of stretcher stabilizing the soldier were all that prevented her from rolling off of the hovering stretcher. Her eyes moved frantically as she assessed her surroundings, the sclera of her eyes as red as blood. Eyes Michel had seen before. There was no mistaking the vividness of those green eyes.

The doctor grasped the N7 dog tags adorning the woman's neck. "Commander Shepard?" Michel gasped.

Shepard spluttered and gurgled, resisting the artificial tubing as she struggled to form words. "BAAA," she repeated as best as she could, the airway allowing little flexibility to form something intelligible. "EEE," she continued, blood spilling from her mouth. She convulsed against her restraints, struggling to convey to the doctor that she was not the only person present that needed to be saved.

"Commander? _Commander_!" I need you to stay as still as possible!" the doctor ordered, vainly trying to hold down the injured woman. "You're injuries are extensive! If you keep moving, you will make things worse for yourself!"

Shepard's flailing hands grasped Michel's gloved ones, pulling them down to the melted ceramic of her armor wielded to her abdomen. Her pleading eyes bore into the doctor's as she struggled to voice what she couldn't through words.

Michel's eyes widened, pushing Shepard's hands away as she realized what the soldier was trying to tell her in order to raise her omni-tool and place it over the Commander's stomach, hastily searching for a program she had not used since her internship days. She turned up the volume of the omni-tool and held her gloved hand above Shepard's abdomen, the Commander lying as silent and still as she could in her agony as she realized that the doctor had understood.

Over the creaking sound of the Citadel twisting in the void, the tell-tale sound of a rapid, sparrow-like heartbeat flooded the thick atmosphere. A thick, gargled cry of relief escaped from the Commander's swollen and bloodied lips.


	4. Chapter 4

**I have to have a little laugh over this fanfiction. Not even 2 weeks after I last updated, I found out I'm having my own little bubba. Coincidence how sometimes our stories coincide with real life? I think not haha. So apologies for the hiatus. I've finally made it past the 3 month mark, and now that the morning sickness and nausea has finally stopped, I've got my energy back again to try to keep updating (full-time work is still playing a big factor in not allowing me time to update, so fingers crossed eh).**

* * *

The Loft was eerie. Silent. Despite its occupants, a thick cloud hung heavily within the living quarters, flecks of dust swirling as the _Normandy_'s battered life support systems struggled to recycle the air. The space hamster ran laps on his little mill within his enclosure, his energetic squeaks peppering the thick atmosphere of the cabin. The few fish that had survived Shepard's ministrations swam endless circles in the generous expanse of their tank, the occasional squeak of "Dinner time, fishies!" of the aquarium VI going unnoticed as it periodically released fish food into the water, long desensitized to present ears.

The Alliance Major was sprawled over the king-sized bed, savoring the drowsiness that his migraine narcotics gave him, his nose buried in the folds of Shepard's N7 hooded jacket. He took in deep breaths of her scent clinging to the material. Her smell of sandalwood soap still lingered in the haphazard tumble of bed sheets, stray black hairs clinging to the pillow covers, streaking red and dark brown highlights when caught in the light. The bed had not been made since the Major had last made love to the Commander before the assault on the Cerberus base. He couldn't bring himself to straighten the sheets that Shepard had kicked aside in her haste to relieve him of his clothing, and grasped in the throes of their lovemaking.

He hadn't even bothered removing the pile of damp towels festering on the sofa, long-forgotten as he and Shepard had stepped out of their shower together with an intent of making it back to the bed for round two.

Kaidan was starting to doubt his leadership abilities. Give him a group of hormonal adolescents whose only concerns in life were "the big adventure", the opposite sex and cherry flavoured omnistick, and he could confidently whip them into shape in a manner that earned the respect of his students and turned them into capable soldiers. Give him a team of the galaxy's best and brightest, previously led by the toughest, strongest woman in Alliance military, and he didn't have the faintest clue where to begin. He had a pilot who was seemingly drowning in the throes of grief- akin to the same grief he himself had gone through over two years ago. Figuratively drowning, of course. Joker had commandeered the bridge of the Normandy as his new living quarters, refusing most meals and shutting down anyone who tried to talk to him. He refused to speak of EDI when prompted, instead attaching himself to his headset with the intent blocking out all external stimuli. Doctor Chakwas, who had grudgingly admitted to Kaidan psychology and mental health had never been her forte and yet had somehow ended up as the ship's medical doctor _and_ counsellor, was ready to throw in her soft, expensive British towels and give up.

The _Normandy_'screw were not faring much better. Her crew were barely managing their duties as they battled the onset of depression, going about their work as the old and battered girl slowly limped back to the Sol system through faster-than-light travel.

Kaidan wished he could channel Shepard. Right now, the crew needed her reassuring words of encouragement, her spark that made even the most skeptical soldier follow her to the ends of the universe and back. Telling the crew that they would make it back to Earth no matter how long it took just didn't sound as sincere as it would have through her lips, in her stern yet gentle voice that could talk sociopaths out of putting bullets through heads, or talk male Krogans into getting off their behinds and going for a sojourn in the female camp.

Kaidan took another deep inhale of Shepard's scent, ignoring the fish aquarium's VI as it started to sing the fish nursery rhymes. There was no doubt in his mind that Shepard had survived the final battle. It was something he felt in his gut, in a place of his heart that he knew science or medicine could not explain. He had known the first time Shepard had lost her life. As he had watched the original _Normandy _disintegrate before him from the escape pod's window, he had been overwhelmed by sharp, stabbing pains in his chest, causing him to double over amongst his safety harness. The then-lieutenant had struggled for breath as his eyes flooded with tears, _knowing_ somehow that the love of his life was dying out there in that great expanse.

This time, Kaidan felt nothing except the occasional pain in his side, a left knee that suddenly decided it was going through the early stages of arthritis, and the definite knowledge that his Shepard was alive, and waiting for him.

"_Major Alenko?"_ The loud, accented voice of Samantha Traynor sounding over the comm yanked him out of his stupor, originally induced by his migraine narcotics but maintained by daydreams of a green-eyed Commander. Kaidan jerked upwards off of the bed, groaning as his migraine protested to the sudden movement. _"There's an incoming message from Alliance Command coming over the secondary QEC. You should take this call, Major."_

"On my way, Specialist," Kaidan mumbled as he smoothed out Shepard's hoodie on the bed, hoisted on his combat boots, and slowly made his way to the Loft elevator, his mind on Shepard's freckled nose, her knowing smile, her vivacious green eyes.


End file.
